Jesse Orosco and Darryl Strawberry owned this town in 1986. One was the closer, the other was the slugger for the World Champion Mets. Their futures were as bright as the airplane warning lights atop the George Washington Bridge.

“We didn’t think about anything but baseball,” Orosco told The Post yesterday in the visitors’ clubhouse in Yankee Stadium. “We were young. Who knew how things would work out? Life goes on. Time goes by. Who knows what will happen to anybody?”

Who indeed? Orosco, like many others at the Stadium last night to watch the Bombers take on the Orioles, was shocked to hear about his former teammate’s arrest on cocaine possession and soliciting sex from an undercover police officer.

The Orioles’ reliever said he heard the news yesterday afternoon on team bus on the way to the Stadium. Orosco’s first thought was a hope that somehow this was all some big misunderstanding. But even if it is, Orosco knows Strawberry has been down this road too often.

After Strawberry beat colon cancer and the following chemotherapy, Orosco figured that his former Mets teammate had cleared the final hurdle. Surely a man who’s looked death in the face wouldn’t tempt fate again.

“It’s been an uphill battle for him to this point,” said Orosco. “As far as the situation right now, what happened yesterday [Wednesday], I’m not sure about it. We’ll find out later on. But it’s been an uphill battle and however this thing turns out, whether it’s a negative thing or not, it will only make things harder for him.”

Even if the allegations are found to be without merit, Strawberry’s judgment is open to question. With his past, how could he put himself in even the most marginal of compromising positions?